Posted on 10/05/2015 3:41:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When he’s right, he’s right.
And it’s … interesting that he’s contemplating his own political mortality this way.
“There’d be a major collapse of the race, and there’d be a major collapse of television ratings,” he said from his office in Trump Tower. “It would become a depression in television.”
Mr. Trump said that a presidential campaign without him would become so “boring” that he would struggle to pay any attention to it.
“I wouldn’t even be watching it probably, and neither would anybody else,” he said.
Debate ratings would indeed collapse. I’m not sure what he means by a “collapse of the race,” but it’s true that the hole left by Trump once he’s out wouldn’t easily be filled by anyone else, and I don’t just mean in terms of personality. Read this description of “middle American radicals,” whom John Judis identifies as the stereotypical Trump voter, and ask yourself who else on the GOP side fits this particular bill:
[Sociologist Donald] Warren called these voters Middle American Radicals, or MARS. “MARS are distinct in the depth of their feeling that the middle class has been seriously neglected,” Warren wrote. They saw “government as favoring both the rich and the poor simultaneously.” Like many on the left, MARS were deeply suspicious of big business: Compared with the other groups he surveyed—lower-income whites, middle-income whites who went to college, and what Warren called “affluents”—MARS were the most likely to believe that corporations had “too much power,” “don’t pay attention,” and were “too big.” MARS also backed many liberal programs: By a large percentage, they favored government guaranteeing jobs to everyone; and they supported price controls, Medicare, some kind of national health insurance, federal aid to education, and Social Security.
On the other hand, they held very conservative positions on poverty and race. They were the least likely to agree that whites had any responsibility “to make up for wrongs done to blacks in the past,” they were the most critical of welfare agencies, they rejected racial busing, and they wanted to grant police a “heavier hand” to “control crime.” They were also the group most distrustful of the national government. And in a stand that wasn’t really liberal or conservative (and that appeared, at least on the surface, to be in tension with their dislike of the national government), MARS were more likely than any other group to favor strong leadership in Washington—to advocate for a situation “when one person is in charge.”
Are those Ted Cruz voters in the making? Not really. Cruz hits some of the same notes about cronyism in D.C. that Trump does, but Cruz’s message is less about class and blue-collar economic anxieties than about individual liberty and anti-government “conservatarian” ideology. Entitlements, price controls, and guaranteed government jobs are not, shall we say, core planks of the Ted Cruz worldview. So if Cruz isn’t inheriting these voters, who is? Maybe they’ll go to another “outsider,” but Fiorina seems too traditionally big-business to hold onto Trump fans over the long haul and Carson’s running a campaign that’s more about “healing” and “ending political correctness” than it is about expanding the middle class’s slice of the pie. Frankly, the guys who seem best-suited to picking off these populist voters are Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who aren’t as allergic as Cruz is to expanding government to help middle-class families, but both of them are seen as such niche social-conservative candidates, I think, that they’re not going to pull voters from outside that band of the electorate this time around. Which means Trump is right — for many of his voters, his departure from the race really would cause a sort of “collapse.”
Again, though, why is he even talking about the idea of a race without him in it? Hmmmm:
Ben Carson and Donald Trump are tied among GOP voters in Pennsylvania, a new poll finds.
Carson and Trump each receive 18 percent support from registered Republicans in the Keystone State, according to the Mercyhurst University Center for Applied Politics poll on Monday…
Mercyhurst’s poll also found that Carson is the best-liked GOP presidential candidate among Pennsylvania Republicans.
Hey, it’s just one poll, right? Not exactly: If you missed it over the weekend, IBD found Trump seven points behind Carson in a new national poll, the first time he’s trailed anyone since Trumpmania erupted this summer. Of the eight national polls taken since the second Republican debate, Trump has reached 26 percent just once. His average is down to 22.8 points, less than six percent ahead of Carson. He’s down in the early states as well. He told one of the morning shows last week that he wouldn’t hang around the race if his numbers disintegrated and he ended up polling at one or two percent, but no one’s wondering about that scenario because we all understand that it’ll never happen. Trump’s base of “middle American radicals” should guarantee some sort of floor well north of one percent — 10 percent, maybe. Maybe a bit more. The question is, though, what happens if the non-MARS segment of his base starts peeling off and he’s left with only that floor of voters? Will he hang in there even if he’s stuck at, say, 15 percent in poll after poll, or will he decide at some point that he’s gone as high as he can and now it’s time to find a reason to bow out before he starts taking actual losses as people go to vote? We’re not going to know that until we have a week or two where someone besides Trump is steadily leading in multiple polls. How eager will he be at that point to do three or four interviews with cable news each day knowing that every one will open with questions about him trailing? This is why he’s starting to think about the race without him in it — at some point, when the questions shift from “Why are you winning?” to “Why are you losing?”, this will cease to be fun. And once it’s no longer fun, that’s when I think he pulls the plug. Maybe we’re closer to that point than we realize.
Pay special attention to the last two or three paragraphs.
If Trump quit everyone would be so let down the whole thing probably would collapse. Can you imagine watching a debate between the other 15? Well except Ted. He could debate an empty chair. The rest are non starters for me. Then Mitt would jump in to save the day and we would watch him choke again.
Oh please. GOOD GRIEF, WHO WRITES THIS TRIPE?
It was well published that Trump consulted Bill Clinton before running.
You think Trump is going to fix your problems? Dream on.
He is just doing what every bad politician does... Pandering to you and lying to your face.
If you think the current clown in office is bad, put Trump in. He will make him look like a Saint.
What was hit he was contemplating in his 2000 book? He was gong to gut our military in Europe by $50,000,000 and use the money to fund a massive federally funded school building program.
Oh boy.
A lot of gnashing of teeth would go with it.....
However a lot of them will go back to support whom ever the DNC nominee will be....
That point was addressed specifically in the piece.
You need to have that Trump Derangement looked at, it's causing you to make wild shots from the hip and look the fool.
The point was ridiculous.
The only person looking the fool is you.
And no, I do not haver ‘Trump Derangement’ Syndrome.
You have ‘Trump Chump’ Syndrome.
The man is an unstable flip-flopper. Go back and read his books.
What he says today has no value tomorrow. NONE. ZIP. ZERO. NADDA.
...
In his 2000 book, and in many of his other statements, Trump has declared that the is FOR single payor. Yes, he is going to replace 0 care, but he intends to replace it with Trump care - i.e. Single payor.
I am not for single payor and so am NOT for Trump.
..
Previously he has attacked the NRA and agreed with the democrat attacks on ‘assault weapons’.
The man would not be a reliable defender of the Second amendment.
..
Perviously, in his 2000 book, he has suggested that he would gut our military in Europe to obtain $50,000,000 in savings.
This money, he would then blow on a massive, massive, federal takeover of the school building programs.
We do not need a Federal take over of the school system.
We do not need to spend $50,000,000 on new schools.
Therefore, I AM NOT FOR TRUMP.
..
Perhaps it is time you went back to the Democrat Underground - you and your operation Chaos.
You weren’t able to read it were you.
Read the crazy screed just fine. Time for the liberals to go back to Climton land.
You obviously are proud of your puppet, but Trump is trying to save us from the owners of your candidate.
1) I HAVE NO PUPPET.
2) Trump is not trying to save anybody.
3) Trump is most certainly not an outsider.
4) Wake the (redacted) up. You are too smart to be led around like a sheep by the Clinton’s and their cronies your entire life.
1) I HAVE NO PUPPET.
Most of America can see the truth which was finally spoken by the Donald. No one else had the courage, or the money, to say it.
Your guy is standing there, naked.
The strings that make him dance are there for all to see.
Enjoy the dancing show, because that’s what it is.
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